Changsha Maglev Express officially launched trial operation on May 6th after nearly two years construction. It is the maglev express which China has independent intellectual property rights. NUDT provided important technical support for this project as one of the co-operation organizations.

Back in the 1980s, NUDT was one of the first organizations which started study on research areas related to maglev technology. Over the past 30 years, the study at NUDT has gone through stages of development such as core technology research, principle prototype development, engineering application research, testing line construction and operating line implementation, and has successfully resolved acknowledged technical problems in the world's maglev transportation industry, for instance, vehicles resonance.

NUDT and Hunan Maglev Company and other organizations cooperated to accelerate commercialization and promotion of maglev transportation technology. They finished the static debugging and the whole line dynamic operation on the Changsha Maglev Express. According to the evaluation of some experts, the success of Changsha Maglev Express marked the systematical industrial capacity of the Chinese maglev transportation technology, and indicated that China has grasped key technologies in the middle-low speed maglev transportation system and the overall technology has reached world-class level.

It is introduced that Changsha Maglev Express is 18.55 km long, connecting Changsha South Railway Station and Changsha Huanghua Airport. Changsha Maglev Express is the China's first middle-low speed commercial demonstration maglev line, and it is also the world's longest middle-low speed commercial maglev line. The minimum turning radius of middle-low maglev railway is only 50 meters which is half of turning radius of subway. So it enables the train to bypass buildings, roadblocks, and it is well suited for transportations between buildings in urban areas and can minimize demolition.

It is reported that the construction of Changsha Maglev Express began in May, 2014 with a total investment of 4.29 billion yuan. The entire running time of Changsha Maglev Express is 19 minutes and 30 seconds with the maximum passenger capacity of 363 people, and the one-way fare is 20 yuan. Changsha Maglev Express will become a important link for creating three-dimensional transportation network in Changsha and the largest air-rail transportation hub in central China.